6 of 17Michael Flanders has worked on V8 supercars in Australia for years.

Photo by Jay Ramey

7 of 17Rod Wade has recently completed the 2013 Peking to Paris rally in this same car.

Photo by Jay Ramey

8 of 17The Tudor Rose sits in a garage in New Jersey a day before departure.

Photo by Jay Ramey

9 of 17The team's route will cover interstates as well as Routes 50 and 66.

Photo by Jay Ramey

10 of 17The team poses by the car a day before departure.

Photo by Jay Ramey

11 of 17Inside, very little has been done mechanically.

Photo by Jay Ramey

12 of 17The car was purchased by Wade out of Pennsylvania just a couple years ago.

Photo by Jay Ramey

13 of 17The team plans on cruising at around 80 km/h, or about 50 mph.

Photo by Jay Ramey

14 of 17A few minor tweaks prior to departure.

Photo by Jay Ramey

15 of 17The Tudor Rose leaves the garage for a bit of sightseeing around New York City prior to departure.

Photo by Jay Ramey

16 of 17Rod Wade plans to do at least two more Ocean to Ocean rallies, one across Australia from east to west.

Photo by Jay Ramey

17 of 17Wade, right, and Flanders, left, pose by the car a day before departure.

Photo by Jay Ramey

Just a few hours ago, Australians Rod Wade and Michael Flanders departed New York, driving a 1930 Ford Model A, with the goal of reaching Los Angeles in less than 60 hours and setting a coast-to-coast record for a pre-war car.

And just a day before their departure, Autoweek met up with Wade and Flanders in a garage in New Jersey, where the pair was getting the car ready. Before their departure from Staten Island, the two racers filled up a bottle of water from the Atlantic and will empty it into the Pacific just a couple days later.

Back in June of this year, Wade successfully completed Peking to Paris in the Ford, coming in 23rd out of 96 cars. So the drive from New York to LA, to benefit Kidney Health Australia, will perhaps be a quick pipe-clearing run for the Ford more than anything else.

Wade, now 71, is no stranger to adventure, having competed in various road rallies throughout the world while taking time to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in between. We're pretty sure that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and completing the Peking to Paris rally in an 83-year-old car qualifies him as a finalist for the title of Most Interesting Man in the World, but his answer to why he was making this run is perhaps unique among New York to LA rally drivers of years past.

Rod Wade has recently completed the 2013 Peking to Paris rally in this same car. Photo by Jay Ramey

"I had to get the car home, and the easiest way to get it home is to drive it around the world," Wade said. "So when we got to Paris at the end of the rally, we shipped it over to London, put it in storage, and I said to Michael, 'Why don't you come over to America and drive this with me?' and he said, 'I can only take two weeks off,'" Wade said with a laugh.

Flanders is no stranger to adventure, either, and the skill set that he brings will count just as much as Wade's rally experience.

"My history has been in the automotive industry my whole career, working on motorsports in the V8 supercars for 10 years, and some performance workshops," Flanders said. "A bit of the racing background actually helps in knowing what we might be up against in this adventure. The car keeps up to speed pretty good up to the speed limit, but as a race-car mechanic, I'm more on the other side of working on cars. But this time, I'm actually driving, so it'll be a different experience for me."

Michael Flanders has worked on V8 supercars in Australia for years. Photo by Jay Ramey

Wade purchased this 1930 Ford Model A just a few years ago in Pennsylvania. In that time, the car has probably seen more days of rally action than some Paris-Dakar vehicles. And like the cars that competed in the Cannonball and U.S. Express runs, some improvements have been made to the cabin to aid with navigation. But nothing has been added that'll help the two achieve faster speeds or to detect police because they'll be averaging only 80 km/h -- about 50 mph -- to cover the 2,947-mile distance.

"To average 80 kilometers an hour, we're going to have to sit around a hundred, and that's our plan," Wade said. "We'll sit on a hundred kilometers an hour and try and bank a bit of time because if we do have an issue like a flat tire or anything, that's time out. We've got to make that up."

And unlike the Cannonball and U.S. Express drivers, they'll be using a 1930 car that started out with 20 hp by design and still makes 20 hp, topping out at just around 65 mph. Nicknamed "Tudor Rose," the Ford Model A is a surprisingly agile performer for something made out of so much metal and outgunned in the horsepower department by some John Deere lawn tractors from Home Depot. Wade and Flanders don't plan to exceed 62 mph on this drive.

"It's a 20-horsepower engine, and it's moving about a ton, plus all the gear that we've put it in it. It's very heavy," Wade said.

The team plans on cruising at around 80 km/h, or about 50 mph. Photo by Jay Ramey

Actually, about the only modern mechanical components that Wade and Flanders have installed are a water tank in place of the back seat and a small electric fan mounted right on the grille to help keep the engine cool. The car will also carry some basic tools and parts in addition to a slew of digital video cameras and satellite navigation aids and timers.

"Overheating-wise, we've got a 100-liter water tank in the back of the car where the back seat normally goes," Flanders said. "So,while we're on the run, we've got a switch where we can actually pump into the car if there is an issue. We've got plenty of water that we can refill the car with. Apart from that, any major mechanical were just going to have to do the best that we can, basically."

Fuel strategy has been a major part of coast-to-coast prep work in most prior runs, and fuel tops exact a heavy price on the overall time average. While modern cars that have made the coast-to-coast run have had to build time credits by exceeding their "normal" cruising speeds, which tended to be in the high 90s, the Model A simply can't hit extralegal numbers. So we were curious to find out just how many stops Wade and Flanders plan on making on this drive.

"We should be able to do a thousand kilometers [about 620 miles] between fills," Wade said. "With a thousand, we should be able to cut it down to five in a dash. So the only thing that's going to stop us from getting there are the two Fs, which is mental fatigue and fatigue of the car. 'Cause this is 80-odd years old, anything can break anywhere. And the other fatigue is from the drivers."

The interior is full of cameras and navigation equipment. Photo by Jay Ramey

Flanders agrees, in the sense that there are only so many things that they can plan for in this run both mechanically and in terms of preparation.

"Probably one one of the biggest challenges is keeping the car cool. It's had some problems and running a bit hot, but we seem to have it under control," Flanders said. "And it's basically the unknown. You can try to plan for everything, but it's almost impossible. We keep some of the parts we think we might need, but we don't really have that much time to change it in any way, and all the parts that we do need, we will just carry on board, and just a minimum amount of tools to try to just keep the weight of the car down as well."

Perhaps our greatest fear for the record attempt will be Wade and Flanders being able to physically handle the 60 hours of driving. On Cannonball and U.S. Express runs, with record times being in the mid-30 hour range, fatigue was already a major factor just as teams were reaching Oklahoma City and crossing the border into Texas by the 15-hour mark, just as the sun was going up. And Peking to Paris, taking nearly a month to complete, presented vastly different challenges than the hours and hours of modern roads with gas stations every few minutes.

"While one of us is driving, the other one can recline the seat right back and get as much sleep as possibly can," Flanders said. "We also have to keep a bit alert to help the guy who's driving at the time just to keep an eye on certain things, and each destination and each checkpoint, what's going on with the engine temperature."

"We will probably do 600 km each, but it just depends," Wade said. "When one's tired, you go to sleep. Whatever we can handle. Because Michael is a young guy and he's worked with a racing team for years. But I've done the same, I've done 16 hour stints no sleep, and doing 600 kilometers a day through Mongolia, I did it myself. So you sleep with one eye open, you make sure the driver hasn't gone to sleep, has been watching the gauges."

Wade and Flanders plan to travel on parts of Route 66. Photo by Jay Ramey

Even though the New York to LA record in 1933 was set at 55.5 hours, this is an entirely different record that Wade and Flanders will be attempting -- making the same trip in a vintage car. The 1933 record is inapplicable here because that had been set on the open roads of the time in a car that was then completely new. The road conditions and the traffic conditions of this record attempt will be very much 21st century, and they'll be tackled by a vehicle that's not far from the century mark itself.

"There isn't really one for this era of cars, so we'll be the first car to set this type of time," Flanders said, referring to the lack of previous records for a pre-war car attempting the run in modern times. "There are times from New York to LA, but they're in newer, highly modified cars and going a lot faster speeds, which is what we're not into -- we're just going to stick to the speed limit."

Inside, very little has been done mechanically. Photo by Jay Ramey

Wade says that he hasn't seen Cory Welles' film "32 Hours 7 Minutes"documenting the Cannonball and U.S. Express rallies of the 1970s and 1980s. Those races culminated in Alex Roy and Dave Maher breaking the 32 hour, seven minute record set by Doug Turner and David Diem on the 1983 U.S. Express, achieving 31 hours and 4 minutes in a 2000 BMW M5 back in 2006. And neither of the Ford Model A drivers have read anything detailing the modern (well, 1980s, really) New York to LA attempts.

So this will be an entirely new record if Wade and Flanders are successful, whether they beat 60 hours or not. We've long thought that the New York to LA could use a "pre-war class" and we're glad that someone has finally thought of attempting it.